Well, Colin rebooked his flight returning from the UK for 23 December, so we had to decide whether we wanted to stay in St. Augustine or move on without him. Having been there a full week, we decided to move. So yesterday we did some additional provisioning (including Christmas decorations) and prepared to depart. Meanwhile Colin is figuring out how to meet us in Cocoa instead of St. Augustine.

This morning, Evelyn took us off the dock and out of the marina like a pro. We had a simply beautiful day of quietly motoring down the ICW. It was warm enough to be comfortable in jeans and sweatshirt - no foulies, no gloves, no woolly hat. Leslie worked on math below while Evelyn and I took turns at the helm. Leslie even took another turn steering!

We traveled past a large and very pretty state park as well as seriously developed areas. Many of the houses here have huge screens that enclose not only a porch, but a whole side of the house and a good chunk of yard that may or may not include an in-ground swimming pool. It makes sense when you think about it. The climate is such that the outdoors can be part of the living space most of the year, and protection from insects is paramount.

On this, the shortest day of the year, we were anchored just south of Memorial Bridge in Daytona Beach by 1600. Sunset here was at 1730, giving us 10 hours and 46 minutes of daylight, which is a full hour and a half longer than at home in Nova Scotia; never-the-less we will be glad to see the days getting longer again. Memorial was the ninth bridge we crossed today and the fourth that had to open to let us pass. The photo is one of the fixed bridges decorated with manatees and dolphins.